Pushing the limits

Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, Tribune newspapers

DEATH VALLEY, Calif. -- It is the least of his problems, but his Skittles are melting.

Zach Gingerich has been running 45 miles in the 120-degree heat, and the bag of Skittles, one of his few joys during the brutal 135-mile Death Valley race, is turning to liquid in his pocket, sapped by the desert sun. As is Gingerich himself.

"Right now I've pretty much given up," Gingerich says as he trudges along the side of the two-lane asphalt road that snakes through Death Valley's rolling hills. "This is what I was talking about before, how it could happen that anyone could have a bad day. I just wasn't feeling good right from the start."

Gingerich, a mild-mannered 30-year-old from Aurora, has been running more than six hours, and is a third of the way through the 2010 Badwater Ultramarathon. His legs feel like logs, his head aches from the heat, and he has just begun an 18-mile uphill trek.

He's walking, frustrated that he's in third place and fading.

"He's having a really tough day," says Evan Hone, Gingerich's friend and member of his six-person crew.

In the months leading up to the Badwater Ultramarathon, Gingerich warned against expectations. He finished third at Badwater last year, shaving a stunning 12 hours from his time of 37 hours in 2008, and had seen the strongest and fastest runners crumple in the suffocating July heat and on the treacherous mountain passes.

The 135-mile race begins at 282 feet below sea level in Death Valley's Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, and ends at an elevation of 8,360, more than halfway up California's Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous U.S. Crossing two mountain ranges, 46 miles are uphill, and the average July high temperature is 115 degrees.

It is considered one of the toughest foot races in the world, a holy grail for ultrarunners.

Gingerich feels pressure to do better this year. Yet no matter how hard he trains, he is at nature's mercy. A week before the race, he is not confident.

"Things stink; my spirits stink; I hate running; I'm no good at it and I'm probably going to die in the desert a week from today," he said.

Why Gingerich is going back to Badwater is a question he has trouble answering. He says he hates it, that he's never experienced "runner's high," that it's all miserable.

Maybe he does it to push his body, to test his tolerance for pain, Gingerich said. Maybe he does it for the travel, the nature, because it's better than watching more TV, he said when pressed further.

Maybe he does it because he can. Gingerich recalls his late uncle, who had cerebral palsy, lost his eyesight and the use of his legs, but still managed to have faith and be cheerful.

"If he had that opportunity, he would run as fast as he could," Gingerich said. "You can't take your opportunity to be able to walk or run for granted."

You would never know by looking at him, and certainly not by asking him, but Gingerich, who lives with his cat Stripes and works in the IT department at OfficeMax headquarters in Naperville, is one of the best ultramarathoners in the country. UltraRunning Magazine ranked him No. 6 on its 2009 Runners of the Year list. In February, he won the harrowing Arrowhead Ultra, a 135-mile run in freezing northern Minnesota, smashing the course record by 21/2 hours.

String-bean skinny, with hazel eyes and brushes of gray in his short brown hair, Gingerich is not a typical runner. He doesn't stretch; he doesn't soak or get massages; he doesn't cross train; he doesn't wear socks; he wears his shorts long; and his preferred method of hydration is two liters of diet soda per day.

What he has in abundance are discipline and sheer will.

Gingerich remembers being laughed at when he finished last in his first race with the junior high cross-country team. "I told myself I would never let that happen again," he said. He trained hard, and he won that race the next year.

"I just remember him being one of the hardest workers I've ever coached," said Clark Turner, who was assistant cross-country coach at Berkshire High School in Burton, Ohio, where Gingerich was a student. "I've coached kids with more talent than him, but he got the most out of his talent."

Gingerich was 25 when he ran his first ultramarathon, the Hellgate 100K through the Appalachian Valley, a task he undertook because he was in a rut, feeling bored with life. He came in second-to-last.

Gingerich insists winning is irrelevant, that what matters most is how well he runs his own race. But he doesn't like to lose.

For this year's Badwater, Gingerich began training in earnest in October to prepare his body for the forbidding heat. He ran in place daily in his gym's sauna, bouncing in his flip-flops for a half-hour as the temperature gauge hovered just past 200 degrees, sweat forming a puddle at his feet while others in the sauna stared, perplexed.

To better inure himself to suffering, he never brought water.

In December he also started running twice per day, usually 10 to 15 miles in the morning before work and another 10 to 15 in the evening, with longer runs on the weekends, including three races of more than 100 miles.

Two months before Badwater, Gingerich bounded across the finish line at the Des Plaines River Trail 50-mile race in 5 hours and 35 minutes — a steady 6.5-minute mile — beating his personal record by 30 minutes and spanking the competition. "I was hoping to get under 5:30," Gingerich said.

Almost as important as training was assembling his crew, the six people who would meet him at intervals along the Badwater course to cool him, feed him, hydrate him and push him to soldier on. His father, Daniel Gingerich, and his stepmother, Jan Gingerich, signed on for the third year in a row, while friends Reggie Jonaitis, Evan Hone and his Hone's wife, Kimmy, would be doing it for the second time. Gingerich's girlfriend, Nell Cox, came on as the newest member.

The day before the race, after their pre-Badwater tradition of breakfast at a Las Vegas Denny's, they visit Wal-Mart to load up on snacks to help keep Gingerich going: bananas, canned beef ravioli, applesauce, fruit snacks, granola bars, beef jerky, Pringles, Skittles, diet soda and pimento-stuffed manzanilla olives.

That night, as Gingerich stands in his Death Valley hotel room making duct-tape handles for water bottles, he is feeling anxious. He has run 6,500 miles since his last Badwater, and logged hundreds of hours running in place in the sauna. But will it be enough?

"There are so many reasons I have to do well," he said. "You train for so long. Is this all going to be wasted effort? All these people come up to you — they have all these expectations."

The start — Badwater Basin: It is 104 degrees when Gingerich and his crew pull up to Badwater Basin, shimmering and salt-caked, shortly after 9 a.m. on July 12. He is among 80 runners competing in the race, and is in the fastest wave of the three scattered starts. Already the first two groups of runners are trotting along the road, some wrapped in white from head to toe.

Gingerich slathers his feet with Vaseline and slips them into his Nike LunarLite Racers, which have 1,000 miles on them. His girlfriend spreads SPF 50 sunscreen on his back, as the rest of his crew organizes the back of the white minivan that will follow Gingerich through the race.

"I guess I'm nervous," Gingerich says after a last-minute bathroom stop. "I have no strategy right now, and so I'm kind of unsure what's going to happen."

He hugs the crew, and his father sprays him with water like a houseplant. As he takes his place on the road, Gingerich slips on sunglasses and flips his baseball cap backward, its ironed-on biblical decal now splashed across his forehead: "HEB 12:1" ("…and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us").

It's 10 a.m., and he's off.

Miles 0-17 — to Furnace Creek: Gingerich is in the front pack early, settling in immediately behind last year's winner, Marco Farinazzo of Brazil, while Jorge Pacheco of Mexico, who won in 2008, zooms ahead.

About a mile in, Gingerich's crew vehicle pulls to the right side of the road. As Gingerich passes, Evan Hone places a chilled bandanna around Gingerich's neck, Cox sprays him with water, his stepmother hands him a new water bottle, and his father gives him a bag of ice to put under his hat. They will give him an electrolyte pill every half-hour, and the sports supplement Vespa, his main energy source, every 21/2 hours. The scene will repeat dozens of times throughout the day.

When they round the curve toward the first checkpoint at Furnace Creek Ranch, at mile 17, Gingerich is walking, in second place. Last year, he hadn't started walking until mile 42.

Miles 17-42 — to Stovepipe Wells: The 120-degree air hangs like a heavy cloak, thick in your nostrils, the wind like the force of 1,000 blow-dryers. The road is flat, but the heat is at its worst here, trapped in the valley between two mountain ranges. Gingerich has dropped to third, and the leaders are nowhere in sight.

The crew, hectic, is stopping every mile or two to give Gingerich food, refill his water bottles and spray him down, tending to him like an infant.

"He's peeing!" Hone announces.

"Did he eat the whole applesauce?" Jonaitis asks.

Gingerich, alternating between running and walking, says his legs felt "loggy," and he's overheated. He has had to stop to put socks on because his feet were sliding around too much in his shoes. The only thing keeping him going, he says, is getting to the finish.

"This is horrible, and I just want it to end," he says.

Miles 42-72 — to Panamint Springs: Still in third place, but losing ground, Gingerich is a half-hour behind the leader. In the ovenlike air, he begins an 18-mile climb to Townes Pass, at 5,000 feet elevation. The runner behind him closes in.

"This is hard for me because I'm a terrible hill runner, and living in Chicago there's nowhere to practice," Gingerich says as he walks briskly. "And I'm lazy and don't do hills on the treadmill."

As sunset casts a dusty glow on the Martian-like landscape, and temperatures fall to 90 degrees, Gingerich takes four Motrin, and starts feeling better. He stops to change his shorts.

"You guys, let's just drop out and go back to Vegas," he quips to his crew.

He starts running again, and soon reaches the top of the hill, where the road flattens and dips.

"Finally, a condition we have in Chicago," he smiles, loping smoothly.

Miles 72-90 — to Darwin: At the mile-72 checkpoint, Gingerich is behind Pacheco by almost two hours, and behind Farinazzo by almost an hour. Pacheco, whom UltraRunning magazine named Runner of the Year two years ago, is running 45 minutes faster than the record pace.

It is the pitch-black of night, and the air has cooled to 78 degrees. Gingerich is huffing up narrow, winding mountain passes, lit only by his reflective vest and a headlamp. Swarms of bugs zip through the air.

"The only thing I want to do right now is lay down," he says as he walks intently with Jonaitis at his side. Some runners stop to rest, nap, eat or even shower, but Gingerich presses on.

Around mile 80, Hone approaches with news: "You're in second place," he tells Gingerich. Pacheco has suffered stomach problems, and was in his van when Gingerich passed him earlier.

Mile 90-122 — to Lone Pine: At about 3 a.m., mile 97, Gingerich passes Farinazzo, who also is crippled by stomach problems.

As dawn breaks and a pink gauze settles over the mountains, Gingerich is in the lead, still running, and he isn't talking.

"If he keeps this pace, he'll win," Jonaitis says. "The fact that he didn't feel good at (mile) 42 may have been a good thing. It slowed him down, so he didn't use all his energy."

Gingerich is hunched over, his face drawn and focused, as he travels this flat stretch, listening to Guns n' Roses on a small radio while Hone runs at his back as a pacer.

"I told Zach, either win it or go to the hospital," Hone says after he hands off pacing duties to Gingerich's father. "I'd want him to say the same thing to me. It's going to be over in a few hours, so suck it up."

Miles 122-135 — to Mount Whitney: The last 13 miles of Badwater are a cruel climb up to Whitney Portal, the trailhead to Mount Whitney. Gingerich slows to a walk for the first time in eight hours, the sun beating down on his back, temperatures up to 97 degrees. He is grunting, his body pitched forward as if gravity alone is pulling him on.

"Swing your arms!" calls out a man standing on the side of the road with his dog. "That's how you power walk."

Just two miles behind Gingerich, Oswaldo Lopez of Mexico, who finished second in last year's race, is jogging, looking strong, and closing in. Soon he is 1.7 miles behind, then 1.3 miles. Gingerich continues walking, depleted.

"I'm a little worried," Jonaitis says. "But I have confidence in him. He's giving it all he's got."

The steep, hairpin turns up the final four miles of mountain are known to make or break a runner.

Gingerich starts running, and Lopez starts walking.

The finish: At 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, Gingerich, accompanied by his crew, runs across the finish line, under the cool shade of trees, to the cheers of a couple dozen people. He has finished first in 24 hours, 44 minutes and 48 seconds.

Chris Kostman, "chief adventure officer" for AdventureCorps, which puts on the race, says he predicted Gingerich would win given his performance last year, though the horse race at the end was the most competitive he's seen. "He doesn't even look tired!" Kostman says.

"I'm tired," Gingerich says quietly. He accepts his prizes: a belt buckle awarded to anyone who finishes within 48 hours, a medal awarded to anyone who finishes within 60 hours, and a T-shirt. There is no special prize for first place.

Feeling lightheaded, Gingerich sits down on a rock and puts his head in his hands. Someone brings him a pancake.

"I don't like to lose, so that part of it is good," Gingerich says. "But I wanted to have a better day. I didn't feel good. The crew deserves all the credit for keeping me going."

Gingerich takes off his shoes and socks, revealing enormous white blisters covering the balls of both feet. His lips are sunburned, and in the coming days he'll lose five toenails.

A week later, and he is home and hasn't run a mile, much less 135.

Yet his next challenge isn't far from his mind. He wants to find a 24-hour run, to see how many miles he can run in that time.

And there's always next year's Badwater.

"I said I'd never go back the last two years,," he says. "I'm not going to say no so quickly this time."